CMI research aims to inform and influence policy, and
to contribute to the public discourse on international
development issues. CMI has an extensive network of
research partners, and works in close co-operation with
researchers in the South.

Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) is an independent centre
for research on international development and policy
with a focus on poor countries. Conducting both applied
and theoretical research, thematic focus is on human
rights, poverty reduction, peacebuilding and public
sector reform. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan
Africa, Southern and Central Asia, the Middle East and
Northern Africa, and Latin America.

everal years ago, I led an evaluation of International Alert
(IA), a major international NGO which works to prevent
and resolve conflict in different parts of the world. At the
time of the evaluation, IA was the subject of serious allegations
regarding its involvement in Sierra Leone which the organization
itself celebrated as its main achievement. Some of its activities
in Sri Lanka had also become increasingly controversial. As a
result, the evaluation came to focus on ethical considerations
and on the relationship between ethics and knowledge. After we
presented our report, the Secretary General of IA resigned from
the organization.

Aid and other interventions
in violent contexts can do harm
as well as good.

Conflict resolution is the promise of social engineering on a
grand scale, and the increasing involvement of NGOs as well
as governments in the heat of war, conflict and violence has
given rise to a growing sense of moral unease among some
policy makers and field workers. Quite clearly, aid and other
interventions in violent contexts can do harm as well as good.
Norway plays a particularly active role in the areas of peace
facilitation and peace building. Some critics have argued that
there has been little to show in terms of results while others
have criticized the ways in which aid is increasingly being used
as an instrument of Norwayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foreign policy, at the expense of
long-term issues related to poverty and governance. There has
been silence on ethical issues.
The debate on moral responsibility is essentially a debate
between actions and consequences, and about who should take
responsibility for what. Some people think that actions are
good when the motives are good. Others believe that the moral
worth of actions lies in good consequences.
In my view, ethics and knowledge are closely linked. It is not
enough that our intentions are good and that we can show
that we are acting out of the best intentions, even if these
intentions are not fully realized. We also have to show that
we have made every effort to collect all possible information
relevant to any particular decision and its probable
consequences.

Page 2

This last point is particularly important when we are dealing
with issues of conflict and violence where the lives of large
populations are at risk. Similarly, much of the aid we provide
in post-war situations is not simply shaped by knowledge or
assumptions of the particular conjunction of factors that may
have caused the war and the turn to peace. Our aid policy is
also affected by increasingly standardized models of post-war
reconstruction that have emerged in recent years. Often, these
models are used not because they are empirically grounded or
derived from the particular country where they are applied.
Rather, the models resonate with ideological presuppositions
entertained by Northern policy makers. Guidelines and
lessons-learned documents from OECD/DAC, the UN or the
World Bank are part and parcel of such streamlining.
Problems are compounded by the nature of the international
aid system which is extraordinarily complex. The multiplicity
of actors, for one, makes for weak accountability and
fragmented responsibilities. The internal workings of ministries
of foreign affairs are far from the problems that beneficiaries
in recipient countries face; promotion criteria in Oslo or
Washington may not be related to results achieved “on the
ground”.
All this may too often lead to behavior and decisions that
are both ill-informed and questionable from an ethical point
of view. Some of the issues involved can presently be seen in
Sudan. Some seven years ago, the international community
decided to negotiate with the Sudanese government to achieve
peace and democracy. It was seen as better for the country
and its population to try to go for a “soft landing” of the
Khartoum regime, although most people wanted to get rid of
it. The result was a peace agreement between the government
and the SPLM. Since then, there have been problems and
increasing divisions within the international community,
particularly over Darfur.

However, the relationship between
peace and justice is complicated
and should be determined on a
case-by-case basis rather than
asserted as a matter of principle.

The ICC decision is a gamble
with unknowable consequences
and large risks.

On March 4, 2009, the International Criminal Court
(ICC) decided to issue an arrest warrant against President
Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity and war
crimes in Darfur. This clearly stands in contradiction to the
negotiation strategy and led to the immediate expulsion of 13
international humanitarian organizations from Sudan.
The statutes of the ICC require the Prosecutor to ensure that
prosecution is in the interest of the victims and the interest
of justice. However, the relationship between peace and
justice is complicated and should be determined on a case-bycase basis rather than asserted as a matter of principle. The
best interests of victims in Darfur will surely be served by
maintaining humanitarian programmes and making progress
towards peace. But the ICC has no competence to judge
the effects of its decisions on peace and security in Sudan,
although implicitly it has a duty to do so. To what extent will
the pursuit of justice turn into revenge-seeking that obstructs
the search for reconciliation and a durable peace? Clearly, the
ICC decision is a gamble with possibly grave consequences
and equally large risks. The ethical issues involved have hardly
received any attention.
I personally believe that Norway should continue peace
facilitation and peacebuilding in parts of the world where
we have a chance to support local efforts and perhaps even
succeed. Whether any peace process succeeds or fails clearly
lies beyond the capabilities of external mediators; instead,
success is ultimately contingent upon the willingness of the
parties to live together non-violently. Thus, it is critically
important to understand the dynamics that keep conflicts
going and those through which they may end. Long-term
research plays a key role to be able to understand such
dynamics and openly deal with difficult ethical and moral
issues in situations where thousands of human lives are at
stake.

Gunnar M. Sørbø

Page 3

Natural resources and development:

You would think that having oil
or diamonds would make you
rich, wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you? Not so if you
are an average citizen of an oilrich developing country.

Page 4

Page 5

Feature

Poverty Reduction

The resource
curse

A

ngola earns 30 billion US$ in oil
revenues a year, yet 70% of its
population live on less than 2 US$
a day. Poverty in Nigeria doubled after
three decades of oil production. This
reflects a more general pattern known
as the “resource curse”, where natural
resources depress economic growth,
increase poverty and inequality, and lead
to lower levels of health and education.
In short, resources reduce the welfare of
people in developing countries.
What leads to the problem are weak
institutions. Weak rule of law makes
fighting for a share of resource wealth
more attractive to entrepreneurs than
productive enterprise. And weak
democratic accountability makes it
possible for government officials to
use resource revenues to secure their
political power, rather than for productive
investment. In both cases, resources are
used inefficiently, and development suffers
as a result.
What makes the problem difficult to
address, is the fact that elites in resource
rich countries benefit from the situation.
Weak institutions enables them to pocket
large parts of the resource rents. The
agents that have the opportunity to
improve the situation therefore do not
have the incentives to do so. Why kill
your own cash cow? In the absence of
other powerful groups, there is little
reason to expect institutional reform to
be domestically induced.
So interaction from outside is needed,
but from whom? Other states or the
international community? Multinational
oil companies? Recent research at CMI
has taken a closer look at the role
these agents do play and should play in
addressing the resource curse.
The problem with international initiatives
towards the resource curse is that
rich countries prefer not to get their
hands dirty. The Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative (EITI) suffers
from three major shortcomings; i) it
is voluntary, ii) transparency does not
help where no one has the power to act
on the information, iii) transparency
in resource revenues is less important
than transparency in expenditures.
Petroleum-related aid initiatives, such

as the Norwegian Oil for Development
Programme, focus too narrowly on sector
issues.
Neither type of initiative addresses the
governance dysfunctions underlying
the resource curse. But guess what?
You cannot induce institutional reform
without changing incentives, without
increasing the power and influence of the
groups benefiting from reform. To induce
change, you have to improve democratic
accountability. You have to get involved
in politics, and that’s going to be messy.
You have to get your hands dirty.
By contrast, multinational oil companies
wash their hands of the whole problem.
We can’t get involved in politics, is the
standard argument. But they already
are involved in politics. If you channel
millions of dollars into an opaque
system, benefiting a corrupt elite, you are
creating or cementing an imbalance of
power. Companies are often the agents
with the most clout in resource rich
countries, and if they won’t act where
others can’t or won’t, what is the result?
Do we leave the poor to their fate?
It is not in the interest of corporations to
accept these points, and their incentives
must be changed for them to act
differently. It is disheartening, then, that
the points are similarly lost on policy
makers that could provide the right
incentives to companies. For example,
despite input from CMI, a recent white
paper from the Norwegian government
on corporate social responsibility paints a
naïvely rosy picture of company activities
in resource rich countries, rejecting any
positive duties for corporations to improve
the situation.
We know a lot about the resource curse.
But there is also more to be learnt, in
particular on effective ways of inducing
institutional change in resource rich
developing countries. More research is
needed. But the biggest challenge for
researchers is to get policy makers and
companies to listen. If the problem is
that everyone benefits from substandard
institutions except the poor in resource
rich countries, this is going to be
challenging indeed.
ivar.kolstad@cmi.no

Page 6

You have to
get involved
in politics, and
that’s going to
be messy. You
have to get your
hands dirty.

CMI2008

Page 7

Highlight

Research focus

Poverty Reduction

Social networks and labour
migration in South Asia

Evaluations – are they necessary?

N

orad’s 2007 Results Report amply
illustrates the challenge facing results
reporting on aid – it is an inherently
difficult empirical task to link cause and
effect in studies of human society, which is
made no easier with the growing ambitions
set out for aid. The discrepancy between
the aims of foreign aid and its relative role
in creating corresponding outcomes, has
steadily been increasing – culminating
in the Millennium Development Goals.
Earlier, donors could be satisfied if a project
they supported met its output targets,
often measured by the physical actions
undertaken in the project. Contemporary
demands require that donors specify
the impacts of aid on the well-being of
the recipient people, or on political and
economic processes in the recipients’
society. Undoubtedly, this perspective
is necessary for justifying aid strategies,
but most aid evaluations tend to make
assumptions about impact rather than
empirically proven impact.
Very few robust aid impact evaluations have
been carried out by Norwegian research
institutions and consultancy firms during
the review period 1996-2007. One of the
main findings from our review, is that the
evaluators did not have the necessary time
or budget to conduct a proper impact
evaluation, which in turn yields a superficial
treatment of the impact evaluation
components of the study. This has partly
to do with the low overall budget of the
studies, but also with the large number
of questions being addressed in the ToR.
Commissioning bodies should rather
limit the number of impact evaluations,
and provide an adequate budget for

Page 8

impact studies. The ToR must ensure
a consistent and clear interpretation
of the assignment to avoid conflicting
interpretations. This was not the case for
several of the evaluations reviewed. Even
though developing a theory, or a logical
chain on expected programme impact
on the participants and non-participants
would give important pointers to where
the evaluator should focus resources
for studying impact, this is usually not
undertaken by evaluators.
For evaluations where the purpose is to
assess the impacts of a specific programme
assigned exclusively to certain individuals,
households or villages, it is necessary for
the evaluator to construct a counterfactual
scenario (i.e. what the situation would
have been without aid). This involves the
collection of qualitative and quantitative
data from both beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries, and the use of secondary
data to cross-check the particular
research question. Since the best result
is probably obtained by a triangulation
of methodologies, it is unfortunate that
most Norwegian impact evaluations
do not apply an adequate mix of the
methodological approaches necessary to
identify impacts. We also found that impact
evaluations generally provide rudimentary
documentation of the data being used.
Finally, this review underscores that impact
evaluation requires specific knowledge
about evaluation methodologies in
addition to advanced analytical skills.

This study explores motives and
explanations for network use in labour
transactions in low income countries
and the implications for employers, and
in particular for the segment of poor
unskilled workers. One explanation
favoured among economists is that
networks are vehicles for effective
information transmission about
vacancies. Those lacking networks may
face powerful mechanisms of exclusion.
This project will develop theoretical
models to study the incentive problems
confronting workers and employers and
their variation across the skill-level of
jobs, production technologies, industries
etc. Using primary data from detailed
village and destination studies in India
and Nepal, we will test alternative
theoretical explanations for network use.
The ultimate aim is to provide knowledge
on mechanisms that may exclude the poor
from these networks to be able to give
advice on policy interventions that may
improve the access of the poor to external
labour.

Social exclusion, poverty
and the conflict in Nepal
A research group from CMI and
Tribhuvan University has completed a
3-year project on social exclusion and
the political conflict in Nepal. About 20
reports are produced on methodological
issues, statistical measures of social
exclusion, in depth qualitative and
quantitative analyses of mechanisms of
exclusion, the relation between social
exclusion and the political conflict as
well as economic changes that have taken
place during the ten years of conflict. The
empirical findings conflict with the more
popular rhetoric of male hill Brahmin
dominance in Nepali society. In particular
we find deep caste- and economic
discrimination within the conflict-ridden
Terai region. CMI continues activities
in Nepal in two new projects on labour
migration and barriers to investments
among the poor.

CMI2008

Aid relations - diversity
and discord

Comparative corporate
strategies
A number of studies suggest that the
practices of multinational corporations
in relation to corporate social
responsibility and in other areas differ
according to their home country. This
is also anecdotally observed in Africa in
general and Angola in particular, where
differences between Chinese and Western
companies have received much attention
and been the topic of considerable
debate. This study will attempt to
disentangle some root causes of
differences in practice for multinational
companies from different countries, with
an emphasis on Western versus Chinese
countries operating in the same market in
Angola.

Accounting for poverty
reduction in Norwegian
development aid to
Mozambique
Poverty reduction is the overarching goal
of Norwegian development assistance,
as expressed in the “Government Plan
of Action for Combating Poverty in
the South Towards 2015” and other
related documents. At the same time,
it is acknowledged that we currently
know too little about the impact of
development aid and that Norway must
make greater demands on both itself
and its partners to document results.
This study feeds into the process of
improving the documentation of the
results of Norwegian development aid by
taking a critical look at the system of the
monitoring and evaluation of Norwegian
development aid to Mozambique - with
a particular focus on poverty reduction.
Central topics are the implications of the
overarching objective of poverty reduction
on the level of concrete interventions; the
most relevant types of data to verify the
outcomes and impact on poverty; and
the most adequate system for forwarding
information to the relevant stakeholders.

Central to the aid policy debate has been
our understanding of the relationship
between recipient and donor. Politicians
and aid agencies have propagated shifting
doctrines, reflecting changing ambitions
and perceptions of the role of aid.
Current wisdom is enshrined in the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (from
2005), envisioning a partnership based on
mutual responsibility and recipient-led aid
management. Three studies at CMI, all
completed in 2008, showed that realities
are far from the “Paris” ideal - but
not only in a negative sense. The book
Aid Relations in Asia (Palgrave) shows
that recipient-led aid management - or
‘ownership’ as it is commonly referred
to - was established within a diversity of
relationships. A comparative study of aid
to major infrastructure projects in Asia
and Africa, demonstrated the virtue of
long-term commitment in aid - a salient
feature of Japanese aid. An evaluation
of 14 cases of aid exits - donors leaving
a recipient country - amply illustrates
the ambiguities and asymmetry in aid
relations. Visions of long-term sustainable
development were pushed aside in
situations of political discord.

Self-interest and global responsibility:

South Korean and Indian
aid policies in the making

South Korea and India embody unique
development experiences. Today both
play important economic and political
roles internationally and are both defined
as “middle powers”. South Korea
has developed from being one of the
poorest countries in the world to one
of the wealthiest. India is a country in
transition and is still in a dual position.
Despite tremendous economic success
it still receives huge amounts of aid and
struggles with mass poverty. In fact, one
third of the world’s poor live in India.
Knowledge on emerging donors is
inadequate. Many observers fear that
emerging donors might threaten “the
aid hegemony” of the traditional donors
and hamper what has been achieved in
the past. Some believe that new donor
countries will take on a key role in
international aid in the decades to come,
others think they will remain minor
players. South Korea and India have
chosen very different paths as emerging
donors. While India is launching itself
as a “non-traditional” donor and is
distancing itself from the DAC donor
countries, South Korea on the other
hand has already decided to apply for
DAC membership and is taking steps to
move its aid practice in conformity with
DAC-standards. A CMI study exploring
South Korean and Indian aid-policy in
the making, argues that their emergence
as donors is first and foremost driven by
a wish and a perceived need to increase
their international standing and political
clout.
Page 9

Feature

Peace, conflict and the state

Urdu for
beginners
In 2008, the security situation in
Pakistan went from bad to worse.
Local terms can help us
understand some of the sources
of Pakistanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s political quagmire
and growing security concerns.

Page 10

CMI2008

Page 11

Feature

Peace, conflict and the state

Urdu for
beginners

I

n 2008, the war in Afghanistan spilled
over into Pakistan’s border regions,
especially in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA). The frontier region
is now a war zone where “coalition
warfare”, insurgent militancy and Islamic
rebellions kill and displace local people.
This has served to multiply Pakistan’s
existing political and economic problems,
and the country is now reeling from a
severe governance crisis. I have lived
more than two years in Pakistan, but my
command of Urdu, Pakistan’s national
language, was never great. Yet, some of
the local terms stuck in my mind, and I
think they can help us understand some
of the sources of Pakistan’s political
quagmire and growing security concerns.
Pakistan today tops the list of countries
suffering from suicide attacks as more
and more men seek to become martyrs
(shaheed). No country has more martyrs
than Pakistan, and none as many as the
Bhutto-family. When I lived in Pakistan
in the early 1990s, Pakistan’s state-run
TV-channel PTV ended every newscast
with a solemn listing of the shaheeds who
had given their lives for a Free Kashmir
(Azad Kashmir). In fact, the Kashmir
conflict has given name to all types of
intractable problems; everything that has
no solution is Kashmiri; unending and
unsolvable.
One of the country’s most Kashmiri
problems, is corruption (baksheesh,
sifarish). Everywhere you can find
corruption; from the policeman flaying
a taxi driver, to large scale, grand
corruption. In 2007, Pakistan was ranked
as number 138 of 179 countries in
Transparency International’s Corruption
Perceptions Index. Many of the country’s
most prominent politicians, prime
ministers and leaders stand accused of
corruption, but only one of them was
jailed on corruption charges; Pakistan’s
current president Asif Zardari, the
husband of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto who
was assassinated in 2007. Zardari was
widely considered the country’s most
corrupt man, earning him the nickname
Mr. Ten Percent. As such, many saw him
as an example of the outlaws (dacoits)

Page 12

that roam the upper Sindh tributaries;
Zardari, people said, was the biggest
dacoit of them all.
For this reason, most Pakistanis see the
government and the state as exploitative
and oppressive (zalim), whose main
purpose is to prey on the people. Thus,
people do not expect much from their
governments, nor do they have any
reason to. The country’s many civilian
and military governments (hukumat)
have, people believe, ruined the country.
One of the most commonly heard terms
in Pakistan is kharab, meaning broken,
ruined and bad. Everything can be
considered kharab, government, leaders,
services, roads and houses. Worse still
are the politicians who are branded dogs
(kutta), windbags (lotaa) and villains
(badhmash). Many not only blame their
own leaders, but also the United States
as the cause of the country’s misery and
hence its main enemy (dushman). There
is a deeply felt belief among ordinary
Pakistanis that the country is oppressed
by western powers, and especially by
the United States which seeks to prevent
Pakistan from becoming a Great Nation.
It is therefore not surprising that many
see Islam and the implementation of
Islamic Law (Sharia) as a solution to the
country’s many problems. This is one
reason why Pakistan has been unable
to extricate itself from the state-led
Islamisation drive initiated by the Martial
Law Administrator Zia ul-Haq. Some of
the country’s politicians have tried to earn
popular support by implementing Sharia
in the country, not least the former Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif who moved the
so-called Sharia Bill before the Senate. In
the end the Sharia Bill was dismissed by
the Senate, but half-heartedly introduced
in parts of the frontier region. This is why
people there have, since the early 1990s,
demanded full implementation of the
Sharia in areas like Swat.
Pakistan spends less than two percent of
its GDP on education. This is one reason
why it has the highest illiteracy rate in the
region. While Pakistan’s English-speaking
elite sends their children to private

schools (and later to Oxford, Yale and
Harvard), the so-called Quran-schools
(madrassa) are the only alternative for
poor people. Yet, as recent studies have
shown, madrassas neither enrol as many
students as is often claimed nor do
graduates figure prominently among the
country’s many suicide bombers: suicide
bombers tend neither to be very poor, nor
illiterate.
Nonetheless, being poor (ghareeb) is a
perennial problem in Pakistan, and the
state has never seriously tried to tackle
poverty. More than thirty years ago, the
populist Prime Minister Shaheed Zulfiqar
Bhutto promised the masses “roti, kapra
aur makan” (bread, clothes and shelter).
Most people got neither, and Pakistan’s
legislators have since not passed a single
law that could ease the pressure on the
poor. Even a tax on agricultural land
has been resisted by the landed elites
who dominate the country’s parliament.
Instead, Pakistan spends a large part of
its GDP on the military (fauj). The army
not only spends the country’s money, but
the Fauji Foundation, one the army’s two
investment funds, is Pakistan’s largest
corporation and biggest landowner
generating enormous kickbacks for the
country’s officer corps. It is a befitting
irony that the etymological origins of the
term “Urdu” for the country’s national
language, is simply “Army”.
Pakistan is considered by many western
observers a “failed state” that soon
will be faced with imminent collapse.
The people are often cast as militant,
extremist and jihadist, bent on waging a
Holy War. Both these analyses are flawed.
Pakistan is not yet a “failed state” but,
as I have argued, the politicians and
leaders have certainly failed their people.
This has undermined generations of
hardworking people labouring in the
hot sun for little or no pay. They may
have lost out, but not lost faith in a
better future for themselves and for their
country. We should therefore join them in
the common call for the country’s revival:
“Long live Pakistan”, Pakistan zindabad.
are.knudsen@cmi.no

CMI2008

Yet, worse still are the
politicians who are branded
dogs (kutta ), windbags (lotaa )
and villains (badhmash )

Page 13

Highlight

Peace, conflict and the state

Research focus

Why does state-building
fail?

Politics, media and IslamISM

T

he co-operation between Palestinian
Institute for the Study of
Democracy, Muwatin, in Ramallah/
Palestine, and CMI entered into a fourth
phase in 2008.

Media and politics in the
contemporary Arab world
The new media have a great potential
for changing the landscape of social and
political engagement and discourse in
the Arab world, where the possibility
of mediated socio-political and cultural
engagement and contestation remains a
necessary if not sufficient condition for
political democratisation and change. The
general thrust of the research questions
centres on the role and impact of these
new medias in the social and political
landscape of the Arab region in general
and Palestine in particular, and an
assessment of the socio-political dynamics
generated in and through them.

Political Islam and democratisation
All across the Arab region the resurgence
of political Islamist movements now
pose a serious challenge to established
political elites. One can say that their
success is a reflection of the failure of
the post-colonial nationalists to institute
national democratic regimes that
could simultaneously fulfil the people’s
national as well social aspirations,
and provide justice and equity within
a democratic political system. One of

Page 14

the main challenges facing democratic
transformations is how to mobilise
ordinary people, the citizenry, for the
struggle for democracy; that is, how
to give them a tangible stake in such a
transformation. The sheer poverty in
the content and practice of citizenship
in the region, where people are “subject
to power” but citizens only by grace of
the regimes, remain one of the major
problems facing any popular mass
mobilisation of the people. Articulating
demands for justice, working among
their mass constituencies and providing
them with a network of services that
the state has abandoned, are some of
the sources of strength of the various
Islamist movements. It is for this reason
many observers believe that the Islamist
movements and parties can be the
carriers of social and democratic change
in the region.

Palestinian political development
This project will study the obstacles
to and opportunities for political
solutions to the stalled peace process
in Palestine in general and the internal
division between Fatah and Hamas in
particular. This includes studies of the
internal political processes (in Hamas
and Fatah), the problem of internecine
conflict, the potential for third-party
mediation and the use of political and
economic incentives to end violence.

The situation in Afghanistan deteriorated
in 2008. The security situation
deteriorated in the southern parts of the
country and the number of civilian war
victims increased to its highest level since
2001. Corruption is a major challenge
and the legitimacy of the government
appears severely undermined. Despite
progress in the health and education
sectors and a relatively peaceful
situation in central and northern parts
of Afghanistan, the Afghan population
are increasingly wary of the international
presence.
CMI’s Afghanistan research goes back
more than 20 years. Now, there is a close
collaboration with the International Peace
Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) and
Afghan researchers and institutions. This
allows for informed and critical debate
of important research and policy issues,
including a CMI/PRIO seminar series
hosted by PRIO in Oslo and an active
engagement in Norwegian media and
policy debates.
CMI research continues to challenge the
assumptions of the international statebuilding project in Afghanistan, while
also addressing more specific questions
such as justice sector reform. A focus
area has been the identification of
conciliatory approaches to the insurgency,
and a mapping of institutions engaged
in social science research in Afghanistan.
CMI researchers contributed to a major
British research project “Understanding
Afghanistan” and completed a review of
the voluntary return programme from
Norway to Afghanistan. Finally, the
foundations were laid for the initiation
of two new projects starting in 2009; a
PhD project on gender and security and
a research project on the interactions
between internal and external peacebuilders.

CMI2008

Violence in the postconflict state
The ending of wars is often followed by
continued or new forms of violence in the
affected states. Such violence, whether
associated with ex-combatants, organised
crime, disaffected warlords, recriminating
agents of the state or marginalised
groups, seems widespread but poorly
understood. This project aims to increase
our theoretically informed knowledge
about the causes, manifestations and scale
of such violence, as well as patterns of
transformation. Which conditions and
strategies are likely to reduce post-war
violence?

Peacebuilding in Sudan:
micro- macro issues
In cooperation with the University
of Khartoum, Al Ahfad University
for Women, the University of Bergen
and PRIO, we explore challenges to
peacebuilding in Sudan, with a particular
focus on (a) the political economy of the
transition, including institutional and
governance issues, and (b) the role of
third party engagement and issues related
to the management and coordination of
aid. The programme is multidisciplinary
and combines macro level studies with
research in selected localities and states.
It covers basic research, capacity building
(primarily in Sudan) and policy oriented
needs.

Sowing the oil, developing
a nation. Poverty reduction and political conflict in
Venezuela
This is a study of how oil revenues
are directed towards social and economic development under the current
Venezuelan government, focusing on
legally grounded, but locally organized
community groups in poor urban communities as well as their intersections with
state/government entities. Eclipsing this
ethnographic focus, the study also seeks
to explore how the country’s extensive
possession of oil is shaping imageries of
the nation state, political identities, and
social and political conflicts.

Flammable societies
Flammable Societies is a direct response
to gaps in current understandings of the
“resource curse”, i.e. the counter-intuitive
finding that rather than transforming
poor countries into flourishing economies,
the discovery and exploitation of natural
resources, commonly lead to higher
indices of poverty and violence. Our
project builds on a series of in-depth
country case studies from Latin America,
Africa, the Caucuses and Europe in an
effort to better understand the linkages
that exist between oil and gas industry
development and the generation of
conflict and poverty on the one hand,
and the possibilities for generating
peaceful economic, political and social
opportunities on the other. Funded by the
Norwegian Research Council for a period
of three years, the project will hold its first
international conference in La Paz, Bolivia
in July 2009.

In search of security:
Religious mobilization and
violent justice in Indonesia
The project explores the links between
religious movements and violence in the
context of a weakened state, focusing on
the faith-based “security” groups that
have emerged among Sasak Muslims and
Balinese Hindus on the island of Lombok
in the post-New Order “reformation”
era. The project examines the alternative
notions of “justice”, “security” and
“order” being developed within these
vigorous social movements. The project
aims to advance knowledge of the
structural conditions (local, national,
global) which have lead religious actors
and movements to assume classical
functions of statecraft, thereby challenging
the state’s monopoly on the legitimate
deployment of violence.

Politics of faith
This interdisciplinary research programme
maps and explores the interconnected
process of religious resurgence and
political development in the South. By
examining diverse religious traditions
in politics and contemporary conflict
across a number of states and societies,
the programme attempts to establish a
theoretical framework for understanding
the force of religion in the developing
world.

Palestinian women in
Islamic civil society
organisations
There is a tendency in academic research
and popular presentations to treat women
as if they constitute a homogeneous group
sharing the same needs and opinions.
Taking the women who participate – as
activists and beneficiaries – as a point
of departure, this project proposes a
more nuanced approach, starting by
exploring who these women are and why
and how they participate in Islamic civil
society organisations. This micro-level
starting point will serve as an intake to
explore the nature of the social work of
Islamic civil society organisations. The
outcome will be a study that combines
political, social and religious dimensions
and contributes towards a holistic
understanding of Palestinian society, of
women’s social and political roles, and
of the potential role of religious social
movements in democratisation processes.
Page 15

Feature

Rights, democracy and development

Witnessing an election day in an African
country, one cannot help but be taken
by the celebration, the formal severity,
and the enthusiasm surrounding the
opportunity to vote. But is there reason
for celebration?

Page 16

CMI2008

Page 17

Feature

Rights, democracy and development

Africa’s ambiguous
road towards
democracy

I

n 1989, just before the fall of
apartheid in South Africa, three
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were
rated as democratic. Today, according
to the US based Freedom in the World
Report, 33 countries in the region are
rated as free or partly free. In two thirds
of Africa’s nations, leaders are chosen
through regular and competitive elections.
Much has happened, and Africa has
clearly become more democratic. For
many young people across Sub-Saharan
Africa, casting a vote in order to elect
governments in regularised elections
is becoming a norm that is no longer
questioned. Yet, democracy does not
rest on the opportunity to vote alone.
A democracy requires mechanisms of
accountability between the elected and
the electors both at the time of elections
and in-between elections. Among other
things, it requires institutions able
to check and control the actions of
the executive, the legislators and the
bureaucracy. An independent and farreaching media as well as autonomous
courts are also necessary requirements.
Research shows that elections are not
cures fixing social and political problems.
Regular free and fair elections constitute
only one step on the way towards
democracy. Today, many of Sub- Saharan
African nations have come to occupy
a precarious middle ground between
outright authoritarianism and full-fledged
democracy. Others have experienced
reversals to authoritarianism. Combining
authoritarian traits with some features
of a democracy, are the most common
regime type in Sub-Saharan Africa and
are also quite common in other regions.
Typical traits of these hybrid regimes
include populist politics and executive
dominance, “hyper-presidentialism”,
disregard for the rule of law, weak state
capacity and high levels of corruption.
Across the continent a common feature is
a weak and inefficient political opposition
and a precarious lack of interplay
between ordinary citizens and political
parties – particularly opposition parties.

Page 18

Africa’s precarious democratic
developments pose challenges for
international actors providing support
for good governance. It is by now
clear that ensuring continued progress
after “founding” elections is much
more challenging than the transition
to democracy itself. Donors have
also increasingly come to realise that
democracy assistance is inherently
political and by empowering one set
of institutions and actors over others,
donors may shape internal power
dynamics. We also know that external
actors can contribute positively in
efforts to strengthen and consolidate
democratic structures, but they cannot
act as substitutes when domestic support
is lacking.
Donors and international actors
must avoid relying on a blueprint
of democracy that is not sensitive to
context. Failure to tailor support to
local context and to ensure that it is the
people and organisations in the recipient
country that have the primary role and
responsibility remains a core challenge.
Donors cannot “overload” societies
and governance systems with constant
changes and long lists of demands. Many
areas of democracy support are ripe for
increased donor coordination. Pooled
support to parliaments and consecutive
elections over several years may enhance
the quality of the democratic process,
sustainability of the institutions and
less predictability. In order to enhance
the development of democracies, the
international community should pay
more attention to the role of regional
actors, organisations, and mechanisms
which may have a better understanding
of local and regional contexts. Greater
attention to local ideas and capacity
may help foster stronger regional and
local democratic constituencies and
avoid assistance based on a “one size
fits all” model so often associated with
democracy assistance.
lise.rakner@cmi.no

Today, many of the SubSaharan African nations
have come to occupy
a precarious middle
ground between outright
authoritarianism and fullfledged democracy.

CMI2008

Democracy does not
rest on the opportunity
to vote alone.

Page 19

Highlight

Rights, democracy and development

Key event:

CMI
Human
RigHts
PRogRamme
1983 - 2008

25

Human Rights symposium, Bergen 4-5 september, 2008

Roads to reconciliation:
tRansitional justice
in noRway and Beyond

Human rights between a
rock and a hard place

I

t seems we would rather be safe and
wealthy, than free. The so-called war
on terror entailed serious infringements
on political rights and civil liberties in the
world. There are signs that the current
financial turmoil may have a similar
effect. In her recent visit to China, US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she
would not let the issue of human rights
interfere with efforts to resolve the global
economic crisis and combating climate
change. Executions of political prisoners
in China are apparently less important
than jobs in the US. And as the risk of
mortgage foreclosures increases, we get
less picky about who we get into bed
with.

The CMI Human Rights Programme
celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2008,
against this increasingly bleak backdrop.
This also coincided with the 60th
anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. While some progress
has been made in securing the formal
rights of people, this is still a world
ravaged by conflict and repression, and
achievements are vulnerable to crisis
reversal.
Human rights research is therefore as
important as ever. Research that analyses
the justification and importance of
human rights, the responsibilities rights
entail, and the means by which to secure
more extensive rights for more people.
Research that systematically considers the
tradeoffs and interconnections between
the right and the good, between freedom
and welfare, and between liberty and
security. And research that helps us
understand how people navigate complex
human environments with different and
Page 20

possibly conflicting representations of
the right and the good.
The CMI Human Rights programme
continues to contribute to our
understanding of these issues. Current
activities of the programme revolve
around two thematic areas, entitled
Transitional Justice and Land and Law.
The Transitional Justice project
examines how different formal
transitional justice mechanisms (such
as trials, truth commissions, and
amnesties) and informal transitional
justice mechanisms (such as various
local rituals) affect the levels of violence
and reconciliation after armed conflict.
Such mechanisms are frequently
employed in order to foster peace, rule
of law, and more democratic societies as
armed conflicts or dictatorships come
to an end. Yet, there is scarce empirical
knowledge regarding their impact.
The Land and Law project compares the
conditions for rights to land in Africa
and Latin America in order to better
understand what are often ambiguous
and conflicting rules and norms. It
asks under what conditions the formal
recognition of legal pluralities can
function as a mechanism for economic
rights. The project asks whether the
increasing number of state sponsored
initiatives to accept and integrate legal
plurality into national law function
as realistic mechanisms for the legal
empowerment of the poor. The project
questions whether legal pluralism plays
a role in assisting or complicating the
security of livelihoods, of rights and of
access to land.

Research focus

Poverty reduction and
gender justice in contexts
of complex legal pluralism
There is a majority of women amongst
the global poor. Complex legal pluralities
play a fundamental role in shaping
understandings of gender, justice,
community and personhood, and in
shaping opportunities for personal
autonomy, political participation and
access to economic resources (such
as education, health, land, water or
employment). Thus, legal pluralism plays
a critical role in gendered livelihood
prospects and in shaping prospects for
escaping poverty. This research seeks to
explore the relationship between complex
legal pluralities and gendered forms of
poverty.

CMI2008

Developmental democracy

Legal cultures in transition:
The impact of European
integration
The concept of a “United Europe” has
been pursued with vigour in recent years.
But while European integration is being
implemented through the harmonisation
of national legislation, some argue that
‘genuine partnership can only develop
on the basis of shared common values–in
particular, democracy, the rule of law and
respect for human and civil rights’–which
presupposes some harmonisation of
legislation and legal culture. In a context
where knowledge is scarce, this project
generates data on legal culture in five
European states (Norway, UK, Poland,
Bulgaria and Ukraine).

Going to court to advance
the right to health
This research investigates whether going
to court to claim the right to health can
make health policies and systems in
poor countries more equitable by forcing
policy-makers and administrators to
take on their human rights obligations.
Since the 1990s, health court cases have
increased dramatically in resource-poor
countries. With issues ranging from
access to medication and treatment to
basic determinants of health (such
as food, water, shelter, and a healthy
environment), these cases potentially have
huge financial and social implications.
Yet, little is known about the effects of
these cases on health systems and policies
- or about who benefits. Is litigation
primarily used by the marginalised to
gain fair access to medical services, or is
it more often a means used by patients
with financial resources or creativity
to access expensive treatment that is
otherwise unavailable?

Since the early 1990s, Southern African
countries have seen the transition to
multi-party democracies. However, the
new democracies have not produced
tangible benefits for the voters. The
democratisation process appears to be
confined to mere procedures for electing
leaders and for making legitimate decisions. It falls miserably short of generating development or what may be called
substantive democracy. This study intends
to provide a conceptual framework for
analysing institutions and substantive
policy areas in terms of the output of
democratic governance.

Political parties in Angola
This project looks at the Angolan political parties’ ability to mobilise electoral
support, to represent people throughout
the election period, and issues of party
responsiveness and representativity. This
study will analyse possible structural barriers to party consolidation, and the processes of interest aggregation, leadership,
participation and socialisation, bargaining
and coalition making.

Cultural cooperation,
education and heritage
Culture enhances democracy and critical
debate, gives poor people a voice and
facilitates their participation in the
development process. But whose culture
should be supported in heterogeneous
societies where cultural expressions
often play political roles and may be a
dividing factor rather than a unifying
one? How should a balance between
use and protection of cultural heritage
sites be struck, and to what degree are
institutions in the North relevant partners
for institutions in the South? CMI has
evaluated Norwegian support to the
protection of cultural heritage between
2000-2008, offering advice on future
framing and organisation of such support.

Decentralisation and
gender in Tanzania
This study looked at co-ordination and
cooperation in maternal health within
local authorities in Tanzania. Key factors
in successful maternal health included
vertical and horizontal co-operation,
voluntary village health workers and health
committees, an increase in deliveries at
health facilities, mobile clinics and outreach
units to isolated areas, improved means of
transportation and communication, and
committed and serious key staff. Women’s
economic empowerment was a key factor
in all the projects.
Page 21

Feature

Public Sector Reform

Donors:
Preaching tax
morale but
practicing tax
avoidance

The revenues lost by exemptions
by far exceed the taxes collected.

Page 22

CMI2008

Page 23

Feature

Public Sector Reform

Donors:
Preaching tax morale
but practicing
tax avoidance

I

n 1993, I got involved in work initiated
by the National Planning Commission
and the Ministry of Finance in Dar es
Salaam to develop a macro economic
model as a tool for policymaking and
analysis of economic development in
Tanzania. My task was to provide inputs
to the revenue side of the model. I wrote
a background paper on taxation and tax
reforms focusing on the tax exemption
regime and its impact on government
revenues.
Based on data provided by the Ministry
of Finance, I found that the revenues
lost by exemptions by far exceeded the
taxes collected. This applied particularly
to customs duties and sales taxes (VAT)
on import goods, but revenue losses
from corporate income taxes were also
substantial. I came across a tax exemption
regime captured by powerful individuals
within the Ministry. The high occurrence
of exemptions reduced the tax base,
increased the appearance of loopholes for
tax evasion, and created room for bribery
and corruption. A vibrant informal market
for discretionary exemptions existed within
the Ministry of Finance. The Revenue
Department in the Ministry, responsible
for implementing tax policy, was
internally nicknamed the “Tax Exemption
Department”. In addition, a wide range of
stationary tax exemptions were in place:
domestic and foreign companies importing
so-called ‘essential goods’, NGOs, religious
associations and many others did not pay
taxes.
Through this work, I became aware
of one of the more murky aspects of
the development aid business that
has effectively been kept off public
development policy agendas; aid agencies
successfully demand substantial tax
exemptions in the countries they assist:
exemptions from customs duties for
imports earmarked for aid projects
or in-country use of aid agency staff;
exemptions from income taxes for
expatriates employed by aid donors; and
exemptions from VAT and other taxes
for foreign companies like construction
companies employed by aid donors. Tax

Page 24

exemptions on donor funded imports
have similar distortive effects as the
tax-free status of government imports
which leak construction materials and
capital equipment exceeding project
requirements into the domestic market.
The import and capital intensive
technologies characterising many donor
funded projects are indications of the
distortions created by the tax free status.
Foreign companies engaged by donors
have also ousted local companies through
this kind of unfair competition.
In my note to the Tanzanian
Government, I recommended a thorough
review of the tax exemption regime with
the aim to rationalise the system. I also
argued that the Government should take
steps to eliminate tax exemptions related
to bilateral and multilateral assistance by
fully taxing capital imports financed from
abroad and crediting donor accounts for
the taxes paid. However, 15 years after
I wrote my report, tax exemptions to
aid agencies have remained untouchable,
not only in Tanzania, but across the
developing world. Tax exemptions for
donors, and for organisations contracted
by donors, is today a significant feature
of the tax systems in many poor, aid
dependent countries. Developing
countries are often forced to administer
a myriad of exemptions, which typically
vary from donor to donor. This places
unnecessary burdens on the already
weak tax authorities, and it promotes
corruption. Even worse, it fuels a taxexemption culture.
Tackling the shame of tax exemptions for
aid agencies has met fierce resistance. The
International Tax Dialogue, representing
mainly international organisations – the
IMF, the Inter-American Development
Bank, the OECD and the World Bank produced a detailed paper on this issue
in 2006, making a case for reducing
exemptions. The paper was discussed at
the United Nations Committee of Experts
on International Cooperation in Tax
Matters, where it appears to have been
effectively buried due to the resistance
from bilateral aid donors. Hence, while

donors typically push very hard to get
recipient governments to reduce tax
exemptions that fuel political corruption
and burden weak tax administrations,
donors still insist on tax exemptions for
their own staff and operations.
Exemptions for UN organisations are
based on a 60-year-old and now outdated
convention, and have been extended more
broadly to the international community
over the years. It is high time to reduce
and do away with tax exemptions for UN
organisations, multi- and bilateral donor
agencies, NGOs and donor funded foreign
contractors. If donors are serious about
the importance of domestic revenue
enhancement, they should agree to pay
part of their contribution to the recipient
countries by paying taxes and duties just
like everyone else. This will reduce the
negative effects of the tax exemptions.
The removal of tax exemptions granted
to aid organisations and their employees,
would help boost the credibility of both
the revenue administration and the donors
in relation to anti-corruption measures,
and at the same time, contribute to widen
the revenue base and simplify the tax
system. While these procedures do not
directly add any revenue to the budget,
they will introduce a system of controls that
may reduce fraud and raise government
revenues. It may further improve both
budgetary transparency and resource
allocation by fully accounting for public
investment costs. It may also contribute
to a more fair competition between local
and foreign companies competing for
donor contracts. Finally, it will be a practical
demonstration of the willingness of donors
to subject themselves to the duties of
taxpaying that they so strongly urge on
others.
odd.fjeldstad@cmi.no

CMI2008

Page 25

Highlight

Research focus

Public Sector Reform

Anti-corruption reforms
- What works and why?
Evaluation of World Bank support

T

he public sector is the largest
spender and employer in every
developing country, and it sets
the policy environment for the rest of
the economy. About one-sixth of the
World Bank projects in recent years,
have supported public sector reform.
Improving the efficiency of government
counterparts, is essential for the
effectiveness of the Bank’s support to
development. The main objective of the
evaluation by the Independent Evaluation
Group (IEG), was to help the World Bank
learn how to contribute more effectively
to public sector reform in its member
countries.
The evaluation examined World Bank
support between 1999 and 2006, in
four areas: Public financial management,
administrative and civil service, revenue
administration, and anti-corruption
and transparency. CMI was responsible
for the anti-corruption component
covering 19 developing and transitional
countries. Anti-corruption measures are
too often proposed by the Bank without
considerations of the political economy
and clear strategies on how to win the
support of a critical mass of key leaders
who would help overcome the inevitable
opposition of vested interests. Despite its

Page 26

mantra of “no one size fits all”, the
Bank has not developed a framework
that adequately recognises that it takes
time to reduce corruption, and the
differences in where countries need to
start.
Evidence from the country case studies,
highlights directions for future support
to governance and anti-corruption
reforms: First, the World Bank needs
to do more to understand corruption
in the particular country context. The
priorities for anti-corruption efforts need
to be based on an assessment in each
country of the types of corruption most
harmful to development. Second, direct
measures to reduce corruption, such
as the establishment of anti-corruption
commissions, rarely succeed because
they often lack the required support
from political elites and the judicial
system. Third, linking governance work
with visible public service improvements,
may help build the credibility of reforms
from the point of view of citizens
and government. Fourth, sustaining
efforts to reduce corruption, have
better prospects when they emphasise
making information public and building
systems to reduce the opportunities for
corruption.

Managing public resources:

Angola

Angola is in the midst of the immense
task of re-building its institutional,
social and economic infrastructure. The
reconstruction task has been made easier
by the accelerated exploitation of the
country’s enormous natural wealth and
an alleviated financial burden. Yet, the
constraints to broad based development
in Angola are many. The Centro de
Estudos e Investigação Científica
(CEIC) at the Universidade Católica
de Angola (UCAN), is the key policy
research think-tank in Angola. The CMICEIC cooperation programme (20082010) focuses on improving research
and dissemination of policy oriented
studies that can contribute to policy
analysis and policy debate in Angola,
particularly on “resource curse” related
issues. The cooperation brings together
CMI’s achievements and experience in
policy research and CEIC’s thorough
knowledge of the social, economic and
political situation in Angola. There are
17 projects under four main themes:
peace and democratisation; public finance
management; public expenditure and the
poor; investment, pro-poor growth and
the private sector.

Informal practices and corruption in
post-conflict areas:

The case of the West
Balkans
While much is known about corruption
in post-communist states, less is known
about the impact of conflict on corruption
in such states. This project seeks to fill
this void. Large-scale qualitative and
quantitative data on informal practice
in the West Balkans allows for an
investigation of (i) informal practice
and corruption as such, (ii) their impact
on post-conflict reconstruction, public
procurement, politics and the judiciary;
(iii) national culture, history, communism,
transition and informal practice (iv)
informal practice and corruption in the
West Balkans, East Central & South East
Europe and Ukraine.

CMI2008

Crime, poverty and
police corruption in
developing countries
Crime and small-scale violence are
key economic and social problems in
most developing countries, especially
for the poor. Extensive corruption in
the police, experienced or perceived,
contributes seriously to the problem.
Police behaviour is important for many
key issues in development: State-building
and governance in general, the onset
or re-appearance of violent conflicts
and, of course, the levels of crime. The
key question raised is: How is police
corruption linked to the wider processes
generating crime - including corruption
in general, violence and poverty? The
project explores the conviction that the
relationship between crime, violence and
police behaviour causes significant welfare
losses for the poor and that it hampers
development. The project team organised
a session at the World Bank’s ABCDEconference in Cape Town in June 2008.
The project is carried out in collaboration
with NUPI, Oslo.
Coping without the state:

Gender policies
and feminisation
of poverty in
Mozambique
This study is the first in a series of three on
gender policies and feminisation of poverty
in Mozambique, to be carried out in the
period 2008-2010. The studies combine a
critical assessment of current government
and donor policies, with an assessment of
the thesis of a feminisation of poverty in
the country. Our main argument in this
report is that the recent ‘streamlining’ or
‘essentialisation’ of gender policies, largely
pushed by international agendas, implies
the risk of designing policies that do not
relate to national economic and sociocultural realities. Gender relations are
essentially socially constituted, and will
be perceived differently and have different
expressions in different socio-cultural
settings. Moreover, while differences in
material conditions of income and assets
between men and women is an important
part of the ongoing feminisation of poverty
in Mozambique, it also involves questions
around voicelessness and powerlessness
in relation to institutions of society and
the state, vulnerability to adverse shocks,
and the ability to cope with these through
social relationships and legal institutions.

The political economy
of natural resource
management - Ghana
and Nigeria

Service delivery and infrastructure:

Global health and
development

The main goal of this research is to
increase our knowledge of how health
systems in developing countries can
be brought to deliver those health
services that are so badly needed.
Focus is on supply-side constraints
such as the current shortage of health
workers. The research also examines
which factors determine the formation
and implementation of national
health policies. Linked to this is the
scope for joint production of public
services through the combined efforts
of government and non-government
organisations, including private and
traditional actors, local communities and
donors. The programme seeks answers to
questions like:
• What are the relationships between
health and economic development?
• How can adequate quality of health
services be provided to poor and
vulnerable populations?
• How can health workers be stimulated
to serve in remote rural areas?
• Why have some low income countries
been more successful than others in
sustaining high vaccination coverage?
• How can incentives (monetary and
non-monetary) affect health worker
motivation and performance?
• How does corruption affect the
quantity and quality of health services?
• Why does health worker productivity
vary strongly within countries?
• How can both ethical and economic
considerations be involved in priority
setting in health?

This project addresses the political
economy of natural resource management
in Nigeria and Ghana. Awareness
about the variation in developing
countries’ ability to draw economic
benefits from the exploitation of natural
resources for the societies at large is
well established. What we have less
knowledge about is the importance of
country-specific determinants such as the
specific political economy behind natural
resource management. Most producers of
non-renewable resources have significant
potential for improved growth through
improved regulation of specific sectors
and better revenue management. The
project aims at identifying challenges in
the regulation of industries as well as
factors that may explain why returns
from the sectors are below their potential.
The purpose is to give the development
community a better understanding
of country-specific challenges behind
natural resource management (NRM) and thereby develop more tailor-made
policy initiatives. The project is being
carried out in six African countries:
Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, DRC, Guinea, and
Mauritania. It is financed by the World
Bank. CMI is responsible for the studies
in Ghana and Nigeria, and the research
is carried out in collaboration with local
country specialists.

Page 27

U4 Resource center

Public Sector Reform

The U4 Resource
Centre:

Addressing
a knowledge
deficit

T

oday, few people deny that
corruption critically impairs
development goals. Far from
being a “flavour of the month” in the
development field, corruption is now a
topic of long-term donor engagement
both at home and abroad. U4’s donor
partners signaled their commitment by
establishing U4 as a permanent centre
at CMI in 2008. Although corruption is
officially out of the closet, much learning
needs to be done – and documented
– about what measures may reduce
corruption. This is where U4 comes in.
U4 aims to improve the knowledge base
on which anti-corruption programming is
conducted. The world of anti-corruption
has expanded dramatically from its early
roots in prosecutions and legislative
reform. Today, it encompasses all aspects
of governance including international
aspects related to the roles of developed
countries and donors themselves in
fostering corruption.
Despite the broad scope of anticorruption practice, some common
threads emerge in our research and
from our personal interactions with
development partners. There is a need
for more robust analysis of country

Page 28

and local contexts. Often information
and data systems for assessing problems
and monitoring progress are weak. Too
few resources are allocated to long-term,
multi-faceted review of the reform process.
There are still many policy-makers and
practitioners applying standardized
solutions to the problem of corruption
– often encouraged by short-term
consultants who recommend replicating
experiences from one country in
completely different contexts. The lesson
that anti-corruption agencies generally
fail in the absence of a functioning
judiciary is still consistently ignored in
post-conflict countries. The fact that anticorruption strategies become ‘paper tigers’
in the absence of political buy-in and
meaningful monitoring does not prevent
the development of new documents that
reflect the same flaws. Donors themselves
face disbursement and other pressures that
make it difficult to engage strategically.
In the coming years, U4 will continue to
promote its knowledge-based approach
not only in individual country settings but
also within the key international debates,
such as those concerning alignment of
donor support with the United Nations
Conventions against Corruption.
jessica.schultz@cmi.no

CMI2008

Private sector

Corruption in natural
resource management
(NRM)
Donors working in countries richly
endowed with natural resources often
face the challenge of extensive corruption.
U4 continued its NRM focus in 2008
highlighting key actors, corruption
mechanisms and potential strategies
for donors working in specific resource
sectors.
With Africa’s marine resources
increasingly in demand and gaining in
geopolitical importance, incentives for
illegal and corrupt activities abound. The
U4 Issue Paper Corruption and Industrial
Fishing in Africa describes key areas of
concern for donors relating to corruption
and the exploitation of marine resources
by foreign fishing fleets.
Although petroleum-related aid is a
key part of donor activities in oil-rich
developing countries, more research
is required to understand the anticorruption impact of these programmes.
In Mission Improbable: Does PetroleumRelated Aid Address Corruption in
Resource-Rich Countries?, the authors
conclude that while governance issues
are beginning to receive more attention,
donor efforts in respect of corruption
remain limited.

The Private Sector theme page highlights
unconventional and promising ways
donors can engage with the private sector
in their anti-corruption efforts. The
U4 Brief Changing perspectives: How
donors can work with the private sector
to reduce corruption describes some of
the options. Business climate surveys:
Experiences from Ghana, Mozambique
and South Africa explores how partner
governments and donor organizations
have started to more systematically
analyze and shape a country’s business
and investment climate.

Public financial management
U4’s work concentrated mainly on the
role of civil society and parliaments in
auditing public expenditures. In Following
the money: Do public expenditure
tracking surveys matter? the impact of
this well-known tool is reviewed in light
of recent evaluations.

The UN convention
against corruption
(UNCAC)
A comprehensive U4 report Anticorruption policy making in practice:
Implications for implementing UNCAC
attracted much attention at the 2008
Conference of States Party to UNCAC
in Indonesia. Other research focused
on co-ordination mechanisms for anticorruption reforms and the prerequisites
for meaningful monitoring of convention
compliance.

Shaping a strategic reform agenda:

Engaging online and
­in-country

During two and a half day in-country
workshops in Indonesia, Vietnam,
Bangladesh, Tanzania, Nepal, DRC,
Mozambique, U4 worked with donors
and their partners (from the government
and civil society) to identify potential
approaches to specific corruption
challenges. A new workshop focused
on corruption in the health sector was
developed and piloted in Mozambique.
Together with experts in the field,
participants analyse problems, assess
alternative strategies for control and
prevention, and consider concrete
interventions to promote accountability
and transparency.
U4 continued to offer its six-week
Essentials of Anti-Corruption online
course, and introduced a new course,
Money in Politics: Curbing corruption
in election campaigns and political party
finance. Money in Politics is a three-week
programme aimed at giving bilateral
donors a better understanding of the topic
and concrete options for tackling it. The
curriculum covers not only key concepts
but also the roles of different actors and
the impact of international initiatives and
conventions.
Page 29

LIBRARY

A gem of a
resource
2008 marked the beginning of the end
of the traditional CMI library. The first
librarian, Ingebjørg Søyland Bøe started
working at CMI in 1937, seven years
after CMI was founded. In the beginning,
the collection reflected the personal
research agenda of the CMI researchers
with subjects ranging from physics and
psychology of religion, to medicine and
law. Around 1960 with the arrival of
Just Faaland and the establishment of
a development economics project, the
library started to focus its collection on
development studies.
Kirsti Hagen Andersen was hired in
1970, and became the head librarian in
1972 when Bøe retired. She inherited a
collection of 5 000 volumes. In 2008,
the collection had grown to 80 000
volumes and 300 periodicals. Andersen
has built up the largest specialised
collection on development studies in
Norway. What makes the CMI collection
special and highly valued by the research
community is the large volume of
publications from Africa, Asia and Latin
America, publications which are largely
unobtainable outside the countries
concerned.
Andersen and the other librarians at
the CMI library have not only given
excellent service to CMI researchers and
students, and other users. In line with
the CMI agenda, the librarians have also
assisted colleagues in the South with the
establishment of libraries in countries
like Botswana and Ethiopia. Librarians
from partner institutions in Namibia,
Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Bangladesh
and other countries, have been trained
by the CMI librarians. The library
published the Norwegian Development
Research Catalogue between1980-1990,
a survey of Norwegian development
research. Andersen participated in the
creation of the Nordic Working Group
for Development Information Libraries
and has been active as convenor of
the working group for information
within The European Association of
Development Research and Training
Institutes (EADI).
Page 30

All good things come to an end, but
sometimes also to new beginnings. With
the decision to move CMI to the centre
of Bergen, the idea of transforming the
library into a resource centre was born.
In 2008, visions of a dynamic centre for
development-related studies alive and full
of all kinds of activities emerged and grew.
In 2008, 20 000 volumes have been
donated to university libraries, the
national documentation centre in Mo i
Rana, and to CMI staff. Only resources
strictly related to development studies
will be part of the new collection.
The university library will move the
Mahmoud Salih Collection, a unique
book collection containing about 2000
volumes and rare Sudanese paintings, and
its Middle East collection to the resource
centre.

In the fall of 2009, the Bergen Resource
Centre for International Development
opens its doors in Jekteviksbakken 31.
The resource centre is a co-operation
project between CMI and the University
of Bergen (UiB), placed in the heart of
the new building for development studies,
the hub of CMI and UiB researchers
working on development related research.
The resource centre aims to contribute
to making Bergen the national capital
for development studies, creating a
place to meet and to explore, a place for
formal and informal seminars, debates
and discussions, exhibitions and book
launches. The resource centre will be a
venue for research communication and
dialogue at its best.

THE BOARD OF THE CHR.
MICHELSEN INSTITUTE AND THE
CHR. MICHELSEN FUND
Jan Fridthjof Bernt (Chair of the
Board), University of Bergen
Einar Hope (Chair of the Fund)
The Norwegian School of Economics
and Business Administration
Ruth Haug
Norwegian University of Life
Sciences
Jan Isaksen
CMI
Inger Johanne Sundby
Statskonsult
Inge Tvedten
CMI

The CMI strategy states that we must ensure that our research
matters, and that our research only matters if we inform those who
need to know with knowledge for development and justice. This
report has shared some important findings and lessons from our
research. Enclosed is a list of all CMI publications in 2008.

Everything we publish can be downloaded in full-text from
www.cmi.no. There you will also find more information on all
our projects, publications, staff and activities. Subscribe to our
newsletter CMINews on www.cmi.no and we will inform you of new
projects, research, seminars, workshops, conferences and of course
new publications.

In the fall of 2009, we welcome you to our new location in the heart
of Bergen in a brand new building dedicated to development related
research housing CMI and researchers working on development
related studies from the University of Bergen. We open a new web
portal for development related studies in Bergen and a new resource
centre, The Bergen Resource Centre on International Development
together with the University of Bergen. We look forward to
strengthen CMI as a venue for relevant research and discussions on
important global issues that matter.

Page 32

CMI research aims to inform and influence policy, and
to contribute to the public discourse on international
development issues. CMI has an extensive network of
research partners, and works in close co-operation with
researchers in the South.

Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) is an independent centre
for research on international development and policy
with a focus on poor countries. Conducting both applied
and theoretical research, thematic focus is on human
rights, poverty reduction, peacebuilding and public
sector reform. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan
Africa, Southern and Central Asia, the Middle East and
Northern Africa, and Latin America.